Some 22,300, or eight percent, of asylum seekers across the EU applied for refugee status in Italy in the first quarter of 2016, figures released by Eurostat on Thursday showed.

Overall, the number of people applying for asylum in the EU for the first time fell to 287,1000 during the first three months of this year, down 33 percent on the 426,000 who applied in the same period of 2015, Eurostat said.

Germany led the way, with 175,000 registering for asylum during the quarter, followed by Italy (22,300), France (18,000), Austria (13,900) and the UK (10,100).

Compared with the population of each EU state, the highest rate of registered first-time applicants was recorded in Germany (2,155 first-time applicants per million inhabitants) and Austria (1,619), ahead of Malta (904), Luxembourg (888), Sweden (790), Cyprus (749) and Hungary (693).